How Thailand’s Maya Bay is balancing tourism with sustainability: Phi Phi Islands’ tropical paradise, made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Beach, has reduced visitors – and sea life is bouncing back

Feb 22 , 2023

A stunning aerial view of Koh Phi Phi Lee with the beautiful beach of Maya Bay bathed by a turquoise clear water. Amazing limestone karst formations surround this island in Thailand. Photo: Shutterstock

Made famous by Y2K movie The Beach starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Thailand’s Maya Bay once saw thousands of visitors per day – with devastating effects on the local coral reef and marine ecosystem

The beach closed in 2018 and then Covid-19 hit, allowing the environment to recover – the Marine Discovery Center nestled within a luxury resort in the area is educating visitors about the area too

As sightseeing boats headed into the turquoise waters of Maya Bay, a floating buoy rope kept them a few hundred metres away from the glistening beach, leaving tourists to appreciate the beauty from afar before the boats turned back and departed.

These boats then need to navigate around to the back of the bay, where a floating pier has been built for brief stops. From there, tourists disembark and walk along a wooden pathway through the jungle to the white sand beach, a place made famous after featuring in a 2000 film The Beach starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Hollywood movie star Leonardo DiCaprio makes his way to the set of the film The Beach for the first day of shooting in Maya Bay on Phi Phi Lay island in southern Thailand. Photo: AFO Photo

This has now become a common pattern for visitors coming to Phi Phi islands’ famous scenic spot on the Andaman Sea coast.

Idyllic Maya Bay Beach, Phi Phi Islands, Thailand, is showing the strains of being a honeypot tourist destination with overcrowding. Photo: Shutterstock

It’s hard to imagine that just five years ago, the beach was inundated with thousands of speedboats and tourists daily, leaving in their wake a trail of devastation on the coral reef and marine ecosystem, compelling authorities to make the difficult decision to close Maya Bay in mid-2018.

Then, the unexpected arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic also provided this place with a breather and allowed for the restoration of its marine environment.

A buoy forbidding tourist access to Maya beach on Koh Phi Phi Lee, Thailand. Photo: James Wendlinger

“It is one of the most successful marine actions in many years not only for Thailand but for the whole world,” Thon Thamrongnawasawat, deputy dean of the faculty of fisheries at Kasetsart University, said in a phone interview.

According to the marine biologist, under official management, the number of people entering Maya Bay beach has been reduced from around 7,000 per round to just 375, with strict limitations on their activities and length of stay on the island.

Coral at Maya Bay. Picture: Thon Thamrongnawasawat

Tourists are only permitted into shallow waters and stand in a spot where the sea level is below their knees. Thon specifically emphasised this detail as a means of avoiding any disturbance to the coral’s delicate ecosystem.